


he was on the wrong side of the moonlight

by niiiiix



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe- No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Angst, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD HEED THE TAGS, First Kiss, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Roxy Lalonde, PLEASE read the warning tags, Past Abuse, Sad Ending, a character dies and it will be very sad, but nkt the whole fix dw dw, dont get emotionally invested unless u can handle this, pesterlogs, the author died while coding pesterlogs, the palerom equivalent of a makeout scene, which is to say that dave is scared and karkats pale horny, which means he jsut wants to cry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:55:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26142952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/niiiiix/pseuds/niiiiix
Summary: An alien crashing into his backyard was the last thing Dave was expecting when he woke up that morning.Well, correction:The last thing he expected was to fall in love with it.
Relationships: Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas
Comments: 22
Kudos: 63





	1. one

carcinoGeneticist [CG] began pestering  grimAuxiliatrix [GA]

CG: SO. YOU’RE *SURE* THAT BY SENDING ME INTO THE MIDDLE OF NOOKFUCK NOWHERE ON EARTH, I WILL BE MORE PREPARED FOR BECOMING A THRESHECUTIONER?  


GA: Yes Im Quite Sure  
GA: They Are Not Near The Government 

CG: THANK FUCK.

GA: And When I Sent Drones Down To Check I Saw The Two Resident Humans Sparring  
GA: Culling Them Should Be Quite Easy Practice For You I Think  
GA: Especially Because You Cant Cull The Training Dummies

CG: THEY BLEED, KANAYA. WHY IN THE EVERLOVING FUCK DO THEY *BLEED*.

GA: I Know Karkat  
GA: This Is A Topic Which You Have Spoken To Me Often About  
GA: Or Yelled Rather  
GA: I Assume That Maybe Humans Dont Bleed  
GA: That Should Help

CG: YEAH.  
CG: SEE YOU IN HALF A PERIGREE AT MOST. I’LL BE RIGHT BACK.

carcinoGeneticist [CG] gave up on trolling  grimAuxiliatrix [GA]

GA: Okay Karkat  
GA: I Have Hope In You  
GA: They Are Simply Humans After All  
GA: Please Message Me Back After You Have Culled The Two  
GA: <>

grimAuxiliatrix [GA] gave up on trolling  carcinoGeneticist [CG]

carcinoGeneticist [CG] has begun trolling  grimAuxiliatrix [GA]

CG: <>

carcinoGeneticist [CG] gave up on trolling  grimAuxiliatrix [GA]

According to the location Kanaya sent him, he was landing in an incredibly empty space in a large and diverse land. He didn’t care much for that, focusing his screen instead on the tiny square, zooming in on it with the tips of his claws, failing to get more detail. He could at least be assured of its distance from The Government. 

The Government was something of a legend to the Alternians, if not more of a scary story for a terrible lusus to tell a wriggler. The Government was a force of humans who would take trolls who’d landed on Earth and as far as factual evidence goes, previously mentioned trolls are never heard from again. Stray (though possibly faked) trollian messages claim their horns were poked and prodded at, their blood extracted and studied, their bodies examined. This was considered a much worse alternative to a quick culling, and resulted in something of an urban legend amongst Alternians, warning them to never visit Earth. As far as the trolls were aware, the only humans that knew about them was The Government. 

Which was why Karkat just about shit his pants when Kanaya suggested the humans to him. She’d won him over eventually, particularly when she mentioned that when he came back, he would be the first success story of a journey to Earth. And plus, You Can Trust That Your Moirail Would Never Do Anything To Harm You If She Was Not Fully Confident In You, Karkat. 

So here he is, making sure his impact strap is locked in across his chest, squeezing his glance nuggets shut as an alarm warns him of his descent into the atmosphere. YOU’RE GOING TO BE FINE. JUST A QUICK CULLING TRIP TO EARTH AND BACK. He exhales sharply before peeking to see the ground growing frighteningly larger in front of him. He can’t see too much- just a blur of dark jade and rust -before he feels a violent rocking all around him, candy red lights flashing on and off, crowding his thoughts, overwhelming him too much to remember the emergency crash sequence file Sollux had given him. It was a gift, but it felt more like a sadistic corpse party present. A kind preface to his death, or worse, his dissection. But Karkat was grown enough to understand that Sollux had much better coding skills than him, so he grumbled a thank you as he snatched the filestache from his hand. 

Karkat had never heard anything so loud. Or seen anything so bright. 

He comes to quite a bit after, groaning due to an insistent ache in his pan. “Fuck,” He mutters to himself, pushing himself up against the ground. It’s hard, and of a gritty texture Karkat's never felt before. He opens his glance orbs to inspect himself for any injuries, naturally, and is met with a white and red blur a few feet in front of him instead. Karkat flinches, and quickly stands up, unsheathing his sickles from the straps on his back. His first thought was that he hadn’t expected to fight as soon as he landed. His second asked himself what he had expected in return, and his third, illuminated by a soft fire, reminded that he didn’t land, he fucking crashed. 

On an alien planet. With no fucking back-up plan. 

“Motherfucking bulgesniffer, I-” He cuts himself off, forcing silence upon seeing another flash. This time, the blur stops itself in front of him. Karkat can’t see too clearly, and it’s dark outside already. He steps forward and slashes at it with his sickle, then it clatters to the ground. Karkat growls and takes a better stance, calculating his next hit, only for it to be thrown out of his hand by the blur. It has some kind of sword that was unevenly tapered at the end, sharp in the way a broken bottle neck was. The metal reflected the fire off of it, save for a couple of dark brown splatters. The blur says something, quiet and monotone, and it was the last thing Karkat heard before feeling himself hit the ground again. 

_____ 

He woke up on something that resembled a recuperacoon, if you’d let the sopor slime dry out (which Karkat wasn’t even sure was possible). It startles him, and he feels panic rise in his nutrition chute. He feels around for his sickles and… they were right there. He grips them quickly, thanking the Mother Grub and not really thinking about why they were so close. He hops off the bed and jumps into a fighting stance, probably the most commonly used one on Alternia. Which is almost just to say typical posture. 

He scans the room, finding strange repetitions. Posters of various things, notably a Human Nic Cage behind a six-word Con-Air logo, which Karkat assumed must have just been an abbreviation for the actual title. Even then, it must have been incredibly short. There were also strange, soft looking forms in compromising positions strewn around, watchful eyes staring him down from between phallic noses. The only important thing he saw were the several weapons just tossed about. Karkat supposes this is normal, given the casual way a sword was tucked into every little cranny, how there were photos held up by damn ninja stars, how there were daggers hidden in shadows. Good. Karkat mapped the locations of all of these the best he could (it was easier to remember where they were if it was a particularly cursed place. He spotted several ninja stars that seemingly acted as handles to his dresser). 

He’s taken aback when a door opens, snapped from the strange trance one particular puppet had put him in. It was the red and white blur, which Karkat now realizes was one of the humans. The red and white came from the shirt he was wearing and the hoodie underneath, messy stitches posing as repairs to tears in the fabric. Karkat can only assume it was from strifing due to the various fucking weapons everywhere. The human’s sleeves were rolled up its pale arms, with even paler streaks catching every few inches, a pattern that seemed to trail up its neck up to its fluffy white hair. Reasonably, you could assume a pattern continues throughout the whole object, even if some of it was covered. But that didn’t stop Karkat from wondering what could possibly be behind the fucking plastic blocking half his face that was so important to hide, even now. 

The alien said something, in some language Karkat couldn’t decipher. 

_____ 

Dave closes the door to his room and stands in the hallway. He could hardly breathe because holy shit ive got an alien in my bed He shakes his head as though he were trying to rid himself of a fly. fuck no my room He amends, as though there is someone in his head to critisize him for a poor choice of phrasing. He looks up and stands on his tip-toes to shift a ceiling tile aside, revealing a small stack of apple juice. Under normal circumstances, there was no way in hell he’d share his precious AJ. But there was a motherfucking goddamn alien in his room, and this was the only olive branch he had to offer. Apple branch. Olive juice. Whatever! The point was that if apple juice was going to be what stops an intergalactic war (which sounded kind of fucking cool), then so be it. He could spare a bottle. 

He opens the door again, expecting it to be unconscious like before. But it wasn’t, it was standing straight up, angry and rigid, holding its sickles. Dave almost regrets letting it have them, but if it had half a brain cell, it could figure out Dave had some kind of replacement pretty much everywhere. Dave might as well give him some kind of comfort, right? He walked in cautiously, watching the small gray figure for any sort of sudden motion. He was sure he could probably kill it if necessary, but he didn’t want to use that as a first resort. Look at what happened to the guys in fucking Alien. Dave wasn’t a fool. 

“Here.” He holds the apple juice out at arm’s length, scrunching his nose in hesitance behind his glasses. The alien didn’t seem to want it, just glare at it warily with golden eyes that threw Dave off a bit. He sighed and set it down on his nightstand, looking the creature up and down. Though it seemed angry, it wasn’t being quite hostile. Like if Dave swung first, he’d fight back, but he wouldn’t initiate that. Especially not with a real, live alien, what the fuck. 

_____ 

Karkat was ready to cull this motherfucker. He just was waiting for him to drop his guard. 

_____ 

Dave didn’t want to act all friendly with an alien that was practically holding a blade to his throat. He’d rather try and communicate with it. How could he possibly- 

“Oh, shit!” Dave exclaimed, unaware he’d said it out loud. He pulled out his phone, still watching the alien from the corner of his eye. Dave practically had eyes on the back of his head after Bro. 

turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering  tipsyGnostalgic [TG]

TG: yo rox 

TG: heha dave!1  
TG: wuts um  
TG: heya* up* 

TG: do you remember that one app you made like a year ago 

TG: thatsl noyt specfcic enough 

TG: the language decoding one  
TG: so we could make sense of dirks anime rambles and roses french jokes 

TG: ooohhhhh yeyeyeye!!  
TG: why? 

TG: um  
TG: for legal fbi purposes 

TG: mhm mhrm 

TG: i am not harboring an alien 

TG: DAHEV WHAT  
TG: dave* WHAT 

TG: i know i know  
TG: stop freaking out 

TG: STOMP FREKING OIT?????  
TG: YOUV HAV AN ALIEN IN UR ROOM  
TG: RIGHIT NOWV  
TG: and ur tellim me to CLAM????  
TG: calm* 

TG: roxy we are way past freaking out 

TG: wait so how long have u had them????? 

TG: about twenty minutes 

TG: and ur CHILL??? 

TG: yeah  
TG: you cant surprise a strider  
TG: have YOU ever done it? 

TG: welk  
TG: no 

TG: exactly 

TG: but tshi is an falien INVLAISN!!! 

TG: its not an invasion rox  
TG: i think that he landed here by mistake 

TG: he?  
TG: aarce yeou a xenophile 

TG: no i dont hate aliens  
TG: what the fuck  
TG: im trying to understand him i obviously dont hate him  
TG: if i did i would kill him quicker than every one of those fucking smuppets i still manage to find, somehow 

TG: tha5s exectlly the po7nt  
TG: *wonk* 

TG: what are you doing 

TG: *wonk wonk* 

TG: no  
TG: stop wonking at me 

TG: le SIGN  
TG: n e wais  
TG: hete 

tipsyGnostalgic [TG] sent a file "decoder.zip" to  turntechGodhead [TG]

TG: thanks rox 

TG: if yuo domt upsate me ill walk myself dowm to texas and sstangle you!!! 

TG: haha ok  
TG: talk later 

TG: !!! 

turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering  tipsyGnostalgic [TG]

____ 

grimAuxiliatrix [GA]  began trolling  carcinoGeneticist [CG]

GA: Karkat  
GA: Are You Ok  
GA: Should I Be Concerned For You 

grimAuxiliatrix [GA] gave up on trolling  carcinoGeneticist [CG]

_____ 

Karkat looked at his broken palmhusk buzzing helplessly in his hand. Every response he typed to his moirail stubbornly refused to go through. He would like to think it’s because of the atmosphere and connection or something, though the much more likely explanation is that it simply got fucked up in the crash. Not wanting to deal with this now, with his to-be victim standing (walking back and forth, more accurately) right in front of him, he shoves the palmhusk in his pocket. 

He looks up at the alien, who taps something into a small device - HUMANS HAVE PALMHUSKS? - and quickly thrusts it into Karkat’s face. He hissed, an angry click resounding in his throat. He furrowed his brows and swiped it away, not sure if this human was attacking him or not. He reached back for his sickles before it took a step back. He bared his teeth at it and stood a little taller, he wondered if all aliens were tall like him. It. Whatever. 

He pulled his palmhusk out of his pocket and held it out to the human. It cocked its head and made a small noise Karkat was almost sure wouldn’t translate. Just a hum of amusement. Then he said something else, some weird garbled speech. Karkat would like to learn the language, he thinks. 

And then he remembers that he should really get to killing this guy. 

__________ 

Dave rubs his eyes, resting his palms there for a moment before feeling around the dark for his shades. He yawns as he yanks the blankets off of his legs, standing up and stretching out of habit, even though it was closer to midnight than any reasonable time to be awake. He looked around the empty living room, almost expecting to find Lil Cal laying in a potted plant or something. He walked down the hall, tip-toeing to avoid making as much noise as he could because there was a fucking alien in his room. 

Dave figured it was manners or something to give your guest your room, right? Probably. So he wildly gestured at the bed and made lame-ass ‘sleep’ motions by putting two hands on the side of his head. The alien only narrowed his golden eyes at him and Dave had felt embarrassed at that point so he just shut the door behind him. He hoped it figured it out. He also hoped he didn’t like… shit his bed or something. What the fuck were aliens, even? Were they house trained? 

Dave looked up only to see that he forgot to replace the ceiling tile when he hit up his stash last time. He swore under his breath and grabbed another bottle before shifting it back, hiding the apple juice once more. He turned around to go back to the couch, but was met by a looming figure in the hall. 

“Jesus, Dirk, I just about shit my pants right now.” He sighed, slowing his breathing. 

“Sorry,” He said gruffly, as though he hadn’t spoken in hours. Which he probably hadn’t, Dave couldn’t think of anybody else that’d been here, and the last they spoke was last morning. “Did you take care of it?” 

“The alien? Yeah, it’s in my bed.” Dave watched his mouth press into a thin line as he raised an eyebrow above his shades. “Yeah, no, okay, that’s not what you meant, is it?” Dirk gave a small shake of his head. “Sorry.” Dave said quietly. 

“Don’t make me clean up your mess.” 

Dave wanted to argue that the fact a goddamned alien landing in his backyard was absolutely, in no way his fault, but he just gave a quick nod and walked back down the hall. He tried not to think about Dirk’s definition of cleaning up his mess as he drank his juice. 

__________ 


	2. two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hey! 
> 
> they figure out communication first thinf next chapter, i promise, hahaha
> 
> i meant to post chap 1 & 2 as one chapter but it didn’t work out bc the coding messed up but i finally fixed it so yeah! here u go <3

turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering  tipsyGnostalgic [TG]

TG: yo rox 

TG: !!!  
TG: him dave!! 

TG: right so what if i said i had a hold on alien technology 

TG: u WHMAT 

TG: stick w/ me here- thats broken and needs to be fixed, when both you and aforementioned alien are probably dumbasses 

TG: omg dave im so jleauz  
TG: jealous*  
TG: do u kno if its am external prob or an intremal 1? 

TG: uh  
TG: what 

TG: is it a borkeb screen kinda prob or a glitchy ware porem?  
TG: broken* problem * 

TG: i have no clue  
TG: i just know its the only way im gonna be able to talk to him 

TG: that doesnt help lmao  
TG: pester me again when u find out!!!!!! 

TG: mhm fs  
TG: oh also roxy 

TG: ya? 

TG: you cant tell anybody about this u know that right 

TG: duh  
TG: just clal me mx. Zuipperpips  
TG: zipper lips  
TG: shit 

TG: haha i got that  
TG: thanks rox 

TG: ofc!! update me!!!! 

Dave held out his hand to the alien, motioning for its phone. He understood after Dave placed his own phone in his palm, and took it out. The shorter one placed its palmhusk down cautiously as Dave inspected it. 

Completely fucking useless of him, considering it was literally alien technology. He didn’t know how to turn it on, or if it even could anymore. He spent a couple minutes turning it over and holding it thoughtfully so the alien would think he was learning something, but really, he has absolutely no clue how he’s going to fix this. 

TG: i think its an internal problem

______ 

After what felt like hours of pesterlogging, Dave can finally feel like he can tell the difference between some basic principles of hardware… or software? Anyways, even though he knew a bit of American technology basics, he still was in no way qualified to even try and look at the alien’s phone. Hell, Roxy isn’t either, and they’re about the best hacker Dave knows. He would try to ask Dirk, he has experience with tech in different languages (namely Japanese), though something tells Dave that isn’t a fantastic idea. 

Dave sighs as he stands up, his shoulder accidentally bumping the alien’s chin. He’d been looking over Dave’s shoulder the whole time, and he wondered if he would be able to read it if he stared at it long enough. That’s how he learned about photography… It was probably different for a whole alien language, though. 

Dave walks over to his couch and grabs his laptop off of the end table, pulling it open and clicking on his movie streaming service that, once again, Roxy rigged up for him for free. He’s lucky to have such a skilled friend. Here, Dave would probably be narrating what he’s doing and what he’s about to do in a ridiculously long winded way that would most likely include almost Homeric levels of simile usage, but since the boy next to him can’t understand English, there’s no use. It’s almost relieving, almost. Like he can take down his facade just one notch, because who was an alien to judge? Dave was definitely the coolest person he’d seen already, anyways. 

He scrolls through his favorite movies, hoping he’ll land on one they can agree on. Alien seemed a bit too on the nose, and somehow he felt that the one next to him wouldn’t be too interested in anything like Star Wars, so he settled for an action movie that had The Rock plastered all over the cover, much like the rest of the movies he watched. So he pressed play and set the laptop on the coffee table before tossing a pillow across the couch. He pushed his legs back, in between the cushions so that the troll could have more space. He scrunched his angular nose up in shock at the pillow that’d fallen upon him, and his arms fussed with it for a while before he eventually grabbed it and pulled it close, scowling as he watched the screen. 

Dave thought that aliens’ side profiles were a hell of a lot more interesting than the Rock’s. He thought that every abnormal, inhuman angle to his face had better content than what was spewing out of his laptop. 

He blinked behind his sunglasses and turned back to the screen. 

_____ 

Karkat woke up to a socked strut pod poking his face, one that assumably belonged to the human beside him, the one with tousled, bushy light hair, lopsided shades to match a lopsided grin. He growled and swatted at the boy’s ankle who laughed and retreated his limb. Karkat yawned, a vague clicking noise coming from the bottom of his throat. 

The human across from him sat straight up and raised his eyebrows, his mouth hanging open to show his confusion. “What?” Karkat snapped before remembering he couldn’t speak his language. Not that a human ever possibly could grasp the Alternian language. It was probably too complex for a simple creature like… like… 

Wait, fuck, did Karkat even know his name? He searched his pan for a few minutes, thought and thought, and yeah, no, he didn’t even know the human’s name. A formality he figured he wouldn’t have forgotten, especially because of the unimaginable kindness he served to him by not culling him. After he has shown an interest in Karkat’s broken palmhusk, he figured it was smarter to keep him around for a while longer. What good were sharpened culling skills if they left him on an alien planet with no way to get to any other trolls? 

Karkat sat up and cleared his throat. He took a claw and pointed it to his neck. “Karkat,” He said simply. If he said anything else along with it, the human might assume his name was “I am” or something fucking stupid like humans are prone to think. 

The human tilted his head at first, then shaping his talk blaster into an ‘O’ shape in understanding. “Car cat?” He laughed, and said a couple things he couldn’t catch. “Okehyih, Karkat. Yurnahms Karkat.” 

He didn’t pretend to understand the rest, but when the other pronounced his name correctly, he smiled and nodded. Humans have weird accents when it comes to Alterrnian, which is something Karkat hadn’t expected, but makes sense. 

He laughed, repeating the troll’s name over and over. Karkat looked around and then moved his hand to him, a violently fast motion that caught his attention. He didn’t wipe his smile off before loosely gesturing to his head (or his glasses?) and saying “Dayve” 

Karkat frowned. One syllable? He doesn’t think he’d ever met anybody with a one syllable name. He tries it out, his fangs curving around the word in an unfamiliar language with little difficulty. “Dahve. Dayve. Dave?” 

Dave smiles and nods frantically before pointing in Karkat’s face, spewing some more English bullshit Karkat was sick of not understanding. He wished that either of them was technologically adept enough to even try to figure out how to fix his stupid palmhusk, but Karkat wasn’t a goldblood and neither was Dave. Golds usually handled nerd stuff like this. 

Dave leaned over behind him and grabbed a bottle that Karkat recognized from last night. He couldn’t read the label, and didn’t know exactly what the picture on the label was. His confusion practically doubled when he took the bottle in his hand and swished it around. It was thin, much thinner than viscera or grub juice or anything Karkat's ever had. He looked back up at Dave, who made a strange gesture with his hands that Karkat almost mistook as vulgar, before looking down at the thing in his hands and realizing that he was probably trying to show him how to open it. He applied the motion to the bottle and pulled the top of it off rather quickly. 

He looked again down into the bottle, the liquid tinged with a strange gray reflection that Karkat figured was due to his claws wrapped around it. He scowled again at the human, hoping this wasn’t some sort of poison or something which, wow, was something he really should have considered before but it’s too late now because he’s tipping back the bottle and it tastes like- 

What? 

Karkat almost spits it everywhere. IT TASTES LIKE FUCKING PISS. He looks up at Dave with absolute bewilderment in his eyes. “WHAT THE FUCK! Your human grub sauce tastes like absolute shit! I hope all your food doesn’t taste like this, or I might as well fucking starve!” Dave smiled back at him, took the bottle, and drank from it too. Karkat couldn’t understand what he said in his flat tone, but he was sure he heard his name. Half of it, at least. The sour taste was still on his tongue, but it was just a bit too hard not to smile back at the boy. 

_____ 

“Okay, Karkles.” Dave sighed annoyedly, looking around his room for the purple and green phone. Every time that Dave said phone with the thing in his hand, Karkat made a weird growling noise and snarled something that sounded like ‘pall musk’, which confused the hell out of Dave.“I want to figure out how the fuck to fix this thing, so we can download Roxy’s translator, and see what the hell you’re saying all the time. You could genuinely be like, threatening my death or something. I’m on a time limit, bro, and this is my last hope. Translating your alien bullshit.” He said, the alien seated on his bed, looking at him with an expression to show confusion. It was practically the only expression they knew on each other, anyway. Dave hated that. He wanted to see literally anything else there. He wanted to be familiar with Karkat’s laughter. 

He’s an alien! How weird is alien laughter? Probably really weird. And that’s why Dave wanted to know. So he pulled off what looked like the protective casing on the phone and tried to get to work. But when he did, he found wires that moved on their own like worms, and chips that make a squeaking noise as soon as the case was removed. Dave dropped the phone quickly, making a grossed out sound as it dropped. Karkat snarled something and reached over to grab his phone, popping the case back on. at least the noises stopped, Dave thought as he disgustedly shook his hands out, as if to rid them from what he’d just seen. 

“What the fuck, your tech is made of bugs?” Dave said, barely hiding the shock in his voice. He bit his tongue (literally and metaphorically, he’d have to confess to Roxy that yeah, apparently you CAN surprise a Strider, if that surprise is alien tech made of bug intestines). 

Karkat said something back, his voice clicking with what Dave assumed was an explanation. One he really, really wished he could understand. This shit was getting old. 

_____ 

Dave woke up to Karkat holding a sickle over his head. 

He had a tentative look in his eyes, a squint of remorse. His hands were shaking a little bit, and his frown was scrunched up in deliberation. This was, sadly, a sight that Dave was fairly used to. 

He slid out from underneath him in a millisecond, uncaptchaloging his katana and pushing up his shades. “C’mon, dude.” He groaned, stifling a yawn. It’s been a couple years since he’s strifed first thing in the morning. “Be cool, I don’t wanna kill you. That would suck.” 

Karkat growled something back, but Dave saw a hint of a smile. Was he doing this for fun? Dave smiled back, stepping into position. “Alright, dude, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Dave said, not thinking about how Karkat would say that, or even understand the warning in the first place. 

Karkat lunged forward with a quick snap of his sickle and the energetic sound of metal hitting metal. It made Dave’s heart beat fast, probably for many different reasons, and he feinted back, using his weapon to hold Karkat’s in place. He saw his other sickle- he remembered knocking two out of his hands that first night- securely on his back. He figured it was broken somehow, otherwise Karkat would surely be using it right now. 

Dave and Karkat went back and forth, Dave mostly on the defense as he calmly studied the alien fighting technique. It seemed to be mostly offensive, as Karkat would make a little squealing noise whenever Dave hit at him. Did he not learn how to block? Dave got a little caught in his head as he planned out his next couple moves, then snapped back to reality when he felt something warm on his arm. The blood fell before his pain registered. 

“Shit,” He swore softly. He looked down at his arm with his other hand, leaning the sword against the couch. He figured Karkat wasn’t a dirty fighter. He tried to be, holding a sickle up to his throat, but Dave frowned and raised his eyebrows above his shades, and that seemed to be enough for Karkat. He huffed as he put his sword away. 

_____ 

Karkat made a note to inform Kanaya that yes, humans fucking bleed, and were therefore just about as useful as a fucking training dummy. They bleed red, no less. He hoped this was common. He didn’t need Dave to get culled because of him indirectly. That was much worse than him just culling him himself. Karkat wondered what Kanaya would do. It was easier to think about his moirail than it was to think about the fact that Karkat just literally had Dave cornered, and did not fucking cull him. 

_____ 

turntechGodhead [TG] opened a memo board RIGHT NOW!]

TG: wait whys it say opened  
TG: weve had this group chat for like  
TG: ever 

GG: hmm… idk, dave! 

EB: yeah, pester chum works in weird ways. :B 

TT: Well, it’s not like anybody previously had it open, did they? 

TG: guess not  
TG: anyways whats up with yall 

TT: Dave, you opened the chat up again. 

TG: yeah  
TG: so  
TG: is it that hard to believe i just wanna talk to my bros, rose  
TG: brose 

TT: Isn’t John technically your only “bro” in this chat? 

TG: brose  
TG: im wounded  
TG: i cant believe you dont think of urself as my bro  
TG: jade you too for that matter 

GG: :D 

Dave kept going back and forth with Rose on the chat, deflecting anything she noticed and making jokes with Jade behind him. He got another notification, from a separate chat. 

ectoBiologist [EB] began pestering  turntechGodhead [TG]

EB: hey dave 

TG: hey john whats up  
TG: why are we whispering 

EB: what?  
EB: what ever, any ways,  
EB: i just wanted to check in with you!  
EB: you’ve been a little bit, err . . . 

TG: cool  


EB: no, not quite!  
EB: well, you’re always cool, that’s just not what i’m talking about. 

TG: well what then  
TG: what would i possibly be  
TG: if not the coolest motherfucker around 

EB: well, you are! just, not at me  
EB: um,  
EB: lately. 

TG: what do you mean? 

EB: i’m not sure, maybe it’s nothing.  
EB: we just haven’t pestered or video called in a while! and i miss you, you know?  
EB: hey, speaking of, wanna vc now? i haven’t seen your dumb shades in a minute :B 

Dave looks at the alien napping behind him. John would honestly probably love it, he’d think that the fact that Dave had a real, live, alien would be the best thing he’d ever seen. But… He’d tell Jade, who would tell Rose, who would almost definitely not keep her damn mouth shut. He loved his friends, but he really wanted to get to the bottom of this alien bullshit before they could ruin it.  TG: nah im kinda busy TG: doing stuff  EB: “stuff”? :/  TG: fuckin your hot mom, bro  EB: dave, my mom isn’t even alive! ewwwww  TG: just the way i like em  EB: gross! hehehe  TG: later dude  EB: … bye, dave. 

turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering  ectoBiologist [EB]

Dave felt a tiny bit of guilt buzz in the pit of his stomach, but he shoved it away. He was lying to protect the alien from… the FBI, or something. He wasn’t completely sure. But he knew that Karkat was scared of them whenever they were in movies, and that generally you weren’t supposed to tell people you are harboring an extraterrestrial. Roxy knew, and they were enough for now. Dave had to get communication under control, and then everyone else could know. 

He had a feeling he’d crack it soon. He had a feeling that he really, really had to. 

_____ 

Dave had absolutely, positively no clue what the fuck Karkat’s deal with rom-coms were. He wasn’t sure if he accidentally chose them every time and had no way to tell Dave to change it, or if he genuinely liked them, but either way was pretty lame. 

“You don’t even understand what they’re saying,” He says simply, because he can. Even if he won’t understand him, Dave couldn’t get by in complete silence. He’d lose his mind if he couldn’t talk all the time. 

Karkat grumbled something into the pillow he claimed. Dave smiled at him. He wanted this alien to like him, he really did. It’d be cool to have an alien friend, even if they were kind of lame for liking rom-coms so much. 

_____ 

Dave was just about to fall asleep when he heard a faint purring noise. Wait, shit, what? Purring? He lifted his head up at the Karkat, who was his full leg’s length away. Since there was limited space on the couch, Dave’s feet were digging into Karkat’s side, and yeah, he felt a weird kind of vibration. It wasn’t very much, and the purring wasn’t very loud, but it was still alarming. 

Dave looked at the screen before looking back to the boy across from him, whose cheeks were tinged gray all but around his ears and the part on his forehead nearest his horns. Karkat must think he’s asleep because he doesn’t look back, he just watches the main characters kiss onscreen with a fang biting his bottom lip. Dave smiled to himself, almost internally describing the scene as sweet. 

The word shot into his head accompanied by words with similar meanings and he frowned, forcing himself to look at the man and woman kissing on screen instead. 

______ 


	3. three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a coder lived and said poggers

The extent of Dave’s technological skills ends with alien technology. So when he fucked around with Karkat’s phone enough to where the worm-wires wiggled back into what Dave assumed was the correct place, it was practically a gift from above. 

Karkat wasn’t quite sure how the alien knew more about his home tech than he did, but he chalked it up to some deity deciding he deserved a break and moved on. He held his prong out for the palmhusk, the screen lighting up hopefully, and Dave placed it down carefully, as though it would somehow break while giving it back. Karkat looks up at him brightly, giving him a rare and earnest smile. 

“Thank you.” He said, feeling like he was finally able to breathe. Sure, the single quadrant romance movies were a nice comfort even if they were boring, and the human’s recuperacoon was awful to sleep on, but still. Karkat could tell that Dave really was trying. He wasn’t sure why. He didn’t owe him anything, and if he was a regular troll, he would probably cull him. Or turn him in to the government- Karkat wasn’t very sure of the background specifics of the hypothetical scenario. 

Whatever the hypothetical, the reality was that Dave tried. For him. And he didn’t have to. Now Karkat has a way to talk to his moirail- god, he’s got a way to get home now! He didn’t know how to thank him. He tried to think of a way to show affection to the human, but the only way he could think of was a pap, and he had a moirail, thank you very much. He also didn’t want to deal with activating Dave’s pale patches (assuming he had his cheek patch, even! Karkat didn’t even see a spot of red on his jaw). That would be a massive pain in the nook. 

So Karkat silently placed a hand atop his head. Dave blanched, his eyebrows hiding behind his shades. He made a soft noise that Karkat didn’t need a translator to understand was confusion, which promptly turned into a much more pronounced word. Karkat tousled his hair. He’d usually grumble about how much he despises physical contact but, really, how would he understand him? How would he get just how disgruntled Karkat was? 

He wouldn’t. And, Karkat decided that that was fine, every once in a while. 

_____ 

carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling  grimAuxiliatrix [GA]

CG: SO,  
GA: Karkat  
GA: You Have Returned  
CG: YEAH. TRY TO SOUND A LITTLE LESS PISSED ABOUT IT?  
GA: I Am Not  
GA: Rather I Am Very Pleased With Your Return  
CG: OKAY, KAN, WHATEVER YOU SAY.  
CG: ANYWAYS.  
CG: IT IS SO FUCKING LAME DOWN HERE.  
GA: How So  
GA: Do You Want Me To  
GA: Er  
GA: Send A Drone Down Perhaps  
CG: WHAT THE FUCK? NO.  
CG: THEY’D CULL ME ON SIGHT, AND THAT’S IF THEY DON’T LEAVE ME ON EARTH.  
CG: WHICH, HONESTLY, WOULD BE A BIT MORE TROLLMANE.  
GA: Well How Is It Lame Then?  
CG: HA.  
CG: THE QUESTION IS HOW *ISN’T* IT LAME?  
CG: THERE’S NO RECUPERACOONS, THE ROM-COMS ONLY DEAL WITH THE FLUSHED QUADRANT, AND THEIR GRUB SAUCE TASTES LIKE PISS.  
GA: Did You Cull The Humans?  
CG: OH.  
CG: WELL, NO.  
CG: IT DIDN’T SEEM LIKE A GOOD IDEA TO CULL THEM YET IF THEY COULD FIX MY PALMHUSK SO I COULD GET TO YOU.  
GA: Right  
GA: Well  
GA: You Got To Me  
GA: How Can I Help You Karkat?  
CG: WAIT, FUCK, WHAT?  
CG: WHY’S YOUR BULGE IN A FUCKING TWIST?  
GA: It Is Nothing  
CG: JUST TELL ME.  
GA: Fine  
GA: But I Do Not Want You To Think Differently Of Me  
GA: Even Though This Will Most Assuredly End Our Moiraillegence  
CG: WAIT, WHAT?  
GA: I Think I Prefer Female Trolls  
CG: …  
CG: I HONESTLY DIDN’T EVEN KNOW THAT WAS FUCKING POSSIBLE.  
GA: Are You Mad?  
CG: WELL, NO.  
CG: I DOUBT YOU CAN REALLY CONTROL IT, GIVEN THAT THIS MEANS WE’RE BREAKING UP.  
CG: WAIT, THIS MOIRALLEGIANCE BENEFITED YOU, TOO, RIGHT?  
GA: Dont Be Silly Karkat  
GA: Of Course It Did  
GA: You Were An Excellent Moirail  
GA: If Not A Bit Shouty At Times  
CG: FUCK.   
GA: Yeah That Exactly  
CG: WILL YOU STILL TRY TO HELP ME GET BACK TO ALTERNIA?  
GA: Of Course, Karkat

carcinoGeneticist [CG] gave up on trolling  grimAuxiliatrix [GA]

_____ 

“Fuck.” Karkat said, dismay fluid welling up in his eyes. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” He slammed the palmhusk down on the desk. Dave glanced up at once. He looked at Karkat, whose red fluids were now streaming down his face. “I’m a fucking moron!” 

Dave smiles, like an asshole or something. He pulled up his own palmhusk and held it up to Karkat. There was a symbol on it, that looked like a microphone with a pulsating symbol around it. Dave waved his hand in front of Karkat, and he got the hint. 

Karkat sniffed. “Fuck off.” Dave pulled his palmhusk back and tapped on something until an enthusiastic, though weirdly cut voice sang his words back to him. Dave mumbled something, and tapped a couple more buttons. The voice spoke again, this time in Dave’s language. Karkat figured it was the same phrase, it was a similar amount of syllables. 

Dave laughed, his smile wide. He spoke into the palmhusk, and it gave Karkat a “Holy shit!” Karkat smiled a little, and wiped his face. Dave spoke into it again, and the cheery voice asked him what was wrong. Karkat motioned for the palmhusk, and Dave complied. 

“My moirail broke up with me.” 

“What, is that like your girlfriend.” Dave’s tone was lost over translation. Karkat could tell, having heard both versions. 

“I don’t know what the fuck that is. She was my moirail. I was so fucking pale for her.” 

Dave’s eyebrows furrowed when he heard the translator’s version of what he had to say. “Like a girlfriend, then. You kiss and stuff, yeah.” 

Karkat stuck out his tongue and scrunched up his face, shaking his head wildly. “That’s flushed stuff, fuckass. Do I look like I have my flushed patches yet.” 

“Your.” Dave trailed off, and the translator only said the one word. “So she was like a friend.” 

Karkat hesitantly nodded. “That’s closer, I guess.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

Karkat inhaled. “Thanks.” He said begrudgingly, his exact amount of begrudging-ness lost in the happy translator’s voice. Dave smiled at Karkat, and he felt a bit better. 

_____ 

carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling  twinArmageddons [TA]

CG: KANAYA BROKE OUR MOIRAILLEGENCE.  
TA: 2hiit man ii’m 2orry that 2uck2 two hear  
CG: WHY IS EVERYONE SO FUCKING APATHETIC ABOUT IT.  
TA: probably becau2e KN told me 2he wa2 goiing two liike a week ago.  
CG: WHAT?  
TA: ii thiink 2he’2 pale for AA, KK.  
CG: SINCE *WHEN*?  
TA: ii don’t know. 2he never told me or anythiing. iit’s just a hunch.  
CG: FUCK THAT, SINCE WHEN IS IT POSSIBLE TO PREFER ONE GENDER OVER THE OTHER?  
TA: ii’m not 2ure, and frankly, ii don’t giive a 2hiit. iit’2 none of my bu2iine22.  
CG: THAT’S FAIR, I GUESS.  
CG: FUCK.  
CG: I’M STRANDED ON ANOTHER PLANET, MY MOIRAIL JUST BROKE UP WITH ME.  
CG: EVERYTHING FUCKING SUCKS.  
TA: well your palmhu2k ii2 fiixed, at lea2t.  
CG: IT DOESN’T DO ME ANY GOOD AT THIS POINT. KANAYA WAS THE HIGHEST BLOOD CASTE TROLL I KNOW THAT I’M COMFORTABLE ASKING FOR HELP FROM.  
CG: BESIDES ERIDAN, MAYBE, BUT HE’D JUST WHINE TO ME ABOUT  
CG: WELL  
CG: YOU  
CG: AND FEFERI, PROBABLY.  
TA: yeah, he’2 a piiece of 2hiit. ii hate hiim.  
CG: FUCK, DUDE, I’M NOT TRYING TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR PITCH WHINING EITHER.  
TA: get fucked, KK. ii’m not piitch for that a22hole. he ju2t 2uck2.  
CG: WHATEVER. MY POINT IS THAT I’M FUCKING STUCK HERE UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.  
TA: what about GZ? ii’m 2ure he’d help you.  
CG: MAYBE. THANKS FOR LISTENING.  
TA: 2ure, KK.  
TA: tell me iif ii can help.

twinArmageddons [TA] gave up on trolling  carcinoGeneticist[CG]

—— 

turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering  tipsyGnostalgic [TG]

TG: roxy, youre a genius

TG: i knwo!  
TG: wait  
TG: are yuo tellign me that the translatet worked??

TG: yeah it did  
TG: how the fuck did you manage to make a translator that works for alien languages?

TG: im just that poggers i guess!  
TG: one helluva smar cookie!  
TG: thats me!!

TG: thats not even possible  
TG: seriously you should win an award for this shit

TG: id thot of that alredy, an the problem w that one is  
TG: that measn wed proolllyyy have to turn in ur little alien pal  
TG: and my guess is that isnt something he wants

TG: not really no

TG: did you find ouy his name?  
TG: with the translater u mean  
TG: i*

TG: yeah, but this was before the translator, actually.  
TG: its karkat

TG: hehe  
TG: car cat  
TG: vroom vroom meow!!

TG: huh

TG: vroom vroom, meow, dave!  
TG: cmon vroomeow with me  
TG: dobt be an asshoel

TG: damn ok  
TG: guess my hands are tied  
TG: so tied in fact theyre losing circulation  
TG: damn roxy you tie a tight knot  
TG: my hands have fallen off  
TG: how the fuck am i supposed to drive a car, let alone vroom, with no hands?

TG: canst u at least meow

TG: no

TG: gdi dave u take the fun outta evverryyythiggg

TG: anyways gotta go fuck around with the alien

TG: youer makeing it serousoy hard not to wonk at u rn

TG: fuck you i meant translator

turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering  tipsyGnostalgic [TG]

turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering  tipsyGnostalgic [TG]

TG: wait one more thing  
TG: did you record the translator's voice with your own?

TG: mhm!

TG: then how in the everloving fuck did you manage to record an alien language

TG: ok the simple way to put it here is  
TG: the cdecoder learns 2 recognixe letters or characters that seem to act as vowols  
TG: and also like  
TG: gdi what r the nirmal ones called  
TG: CONSONANTS  
TG: right and then based off of what slien words r spoekm into da translator  
TG: finds similarities and plays the little samples of lqetrrers and stuff i made  
TG: letters*

TG: but he does this weird clicky thing

TG: so does xhosa!

TG: do you just speak every fucking language ever

TG: haha nooo  
TG: i only code in them!

_____ 

A couple weeks had passed, and Dave could confidently say a few words in Alternian. Such as fuck, you, stop, annoying, and boring. He taught Karkat a few English words in return- ironic, cool, beats, need, want, help, and most importantly: apple juice. There were a few words they were only half-sure on, but they just used the translator for those if the other was confused. Dave found Alternian really, really interesting. The sounds were (obviously) inhuman, and he couldn’t get enough of them. 

In fact, one day, he took Karkat into his room and pulled out his turntable. He set up his mic and pulled on Karkat’s arm. “Talk.” Karkat scrunched up his face in confusion (which looked a lot like his angry face. And his happy face, and his laughing face, and his blushing face. Dave knew a lot about his face. Especially because all of Karkat’s faces look like he’s kind of angry and poorly masking it.) Dave gestured to the mic and made a shitty, slow clicky noise with the back of his throat. 

Karkat hit him on the shoulder and started yelling, and Dave was pleased to know he caught a few words from it, even if half of them were just ‘asshole’. Luckily, he was pushing the record button, and he got all the cool alien swears recorded. He played the audio back and Karkat jumped before hitting him with another weak punch. Dave smiled when he understood him say, “Fuck you, Strider” because god, if he hadn’t been waiting to understand what the hell was coming out of his mouth. 

Karkat leaned forward and tentatively pressed a button. A cymbal crashed. His brows pinched together, and he clicked the button next to it. Another cymbal- the one with two layered on top, he could never remember the name. He made a soft, contemplative noise. “Yeah, see,” He brushed Karkat’s hand aside to press on the bass drum. He tapped a simple beat out and saved it. He took Karkat’s voice and laid it on top, adjusting a couple of things until it clicked. Karkat’s ears went bright red, and Dave saw the candy red patch on his jaw go paler than normal. Huh. Aliens are weird. 

Dave kept messing around, adding a drop and a line on top using some violin samples he’d pleaded from Rose. In the end, it was like an angry waltz with the violin underneath. Pleasant underneath the Alternian screeching. The patch on his cheek was nearly white when Dave played the song. He wanted to ask about it, but when Karkat caught him staring, he nearly snarled. So Dave backed off a couple inches and kept working the tune. 

_____ 

Dave was very focused on the song he started, ignoring all the questions Karkat had about why the fuck he would want to make a song out of his voice. Dave didn’t notice when Karkat stood up, or when he started rifling through his records. Well, at first. Eventually, he caught on and told him to stop in Alternian. 

Dave loved speaking Alternian more than anything else. He wasn’t great with the grammar, but he could remember the words fairly quickly. It was easier to when there were such strange sounds involved. Karkat called them complex vowels or something like that. He was surprised when Dave knew how to make clicky sounds, asking why if he could make those noises, why didn’t his language require them? Dave then had the honor of explaining that English was actually the hardest language to learn, and some languages did need clicks. It was mostly information that he’d gotten from Roxy, but whatever. He trusted their sources. 

Dave got absorbed into the song again, trying to find a good sample of a cello line, believe it or not. He was trying to write a waltz, an angry one at that. Dave wasn’t a fucking classical composer so of course it had pop elements, let alone the angry screaming on top of it. And honestly, he was really loving how it was turning out. This was out of his comfort zone, and the risk was worth it. He’d been in a bit of a musical slump lately, and he was grateful Karkat was here to pull him out of it. He was grateful Karkat- oof. 

He looks down in his lap to see a lime green smuppet, its ass just all up in Dave’s face. Disgustingly plush. He turns around to see Karkat practically fuming. He captchalogs his H+E+A+D+P+H+O+N+E+S, still using the mess of a modus he had since he was thirteen. Luckily, they go in this time without any collision. “Dude, what the fuck?”. He growls, his tone lighthearted but his accent thick through the Alternian words. 

“Why are those fucking everywhere in your room?” Karkat furrows his brow and crosses his arms, looking like he doesn’t want to ask twice. 

Dave pushes up his glasses. “What, the smuppets?” He jerked his head in the direction of the object that he threw. He nodded. Dave laughed. An awkward laugh, one that felt private, like he said too much just by letting out such a dismissive sound. He wasn’t used to talking about this. He wasn’t used to speaking anything that wasn’t complete bullshit, most of the time. 

Before he even had the chance to, however, Karkat upended the nearest laundry basket. Red and black hoodies, socks, and blankets fell on their feet. “Dude,” he sighed. “C’mon, I’m not picking that up.” Karkat rolled his eyes and sat down. 

“What? It’s not like you were going to fold them anyway.” 

Dave frowned as he reluctantly lowered himself. He wouldn’t admit it, but it did kind of help. Either that or he was super fucking touch-starved. 

Dave nodded dumbly, unsure of where to start. “Well.” He picked up a sock from the pile and started pulling at the threads of a small hole. “They’re not mine, that’s for sure. Never in a million years would I ever look at one of those things and think ‘You know what seems like something I can never get enough of? Something I need to make and keep for the rest of time? Smuppets’. When I first started finding them, I’d rip them up with either my hands or a sword or something, but eventually, I gave up. There’s too many, and I don’t even have a fucking clue where they’re coming from. Sometimes I worry it means he’s still here, somewhere, but I have to remind myself that isn’t possible anymore.” 

“Who?” Karkat only spoke the one word and it was out of character, to say the least. Dave was surprised at his silence, but he was sure Karkat was just as surprised by how much he was sharing. Because that was the thing- It had no impact, telling Karkat. What was he going to do, hit up Lalonde on pesterchum with a list of details to analyze? Give Egbert more incentive to drive down here like he threatens? Not to mention that yeah, he’ll admit it, it did feel nice to actually let some of this shit go. Maybe Harley was onto something. 

“Bro. He was a major fucking asshole, and, unfortunately, my guardian. Well, up until a little over a year ago. When Dirk turned eighteen, he got a job as well as us the fuck out of there. He’s in an entirely separate part of Texas now. He’s too lazy to come and chase us up here, he doesn’t give that many shits.” Dave had to push something inside of him down just to talk about this. The something told him that it was never that bad and that he needs to calm down and stop being such a- “He used to force me and Dirk to strife, even back when we were just kids. Fuck, dude, I’d be like, nine, wielding a whole-ass sword. And he had these cameras everywhere, for the smuppet porn, presumably, but he’d usually do all… that in his room. He’d record us as kids and just,” He sighed. “Post that shit. It was normal stuff really, but something about a ten year old buried in fuzzy dildos really gets people going, apparently.” 

Karkat scrunched up his face in disgust. “That’s sick.” 

Dave nodded, feeling something nasty stir in his stomach. “The worst part of it all is that he’d tell me that it was. Y’know. Normal. Most definitely it was not, but that didn’t stop me from believing it for a really long time. Really, I couldn’t fully get it until after Dirk and I moved out. Maybe I’m just stupid or something, but…” 

“He sounds like an awful lusus,” Karkat growls, looking like he was ready to give this Bro guy a punch in the face. 

Dave cracked a smirk, really, only half that, but it was reserved just for the one in front of him. The only one he’d given a chance to listen. “Yeah. He was. Sometimes I wonder if all my years living with him made me like him, or something. Manipulative and assholish.” 

Karkat frowns so wide, Dave can see his fangs past his lips. He places a hand on Dave’s shoulder slowly, “Dave.” He looks up at him. His sunglasses are slipping, but he’s pressing his weight on his hands. He can feel Karkat’s hand on his shoulder, he can feel it there and there and there, calming. Reassuring. “I knew a girl back on Alternia who had a lusus similar to yours, except it made her commit mass murder.” Dave failed not to snort. “Asshole!” 

“I’m sorry! It was the wording,” He broke off into laughter, but most of it was just at Karkat’s anger. 

“It’s a problem! Alternia doesn’t monitor the lusii, because whatever they do there’s likely a troll out there who’ll do the same and nobody will defend them. I got lucky with mine- that’s not my point. My point is, she was raised in a similar way as you. A troll version, really, if humans are as non-violent as you say they’re supposed to be. And she hasn’t changed. She’s manipulative, and kind of a bitch. In my opinion. But you?” Karkat dropped the frown, and after a moment, his hand. The patch on his cheek was doing something Dave hadn’t seen before. Swirling red and white. The patch was so fucking intriuging- he had to ask about it sometime. “You aren’t anything like that. You’d probably be manipulative, and… fuck, Dave, you probably would have killed me out there when I crashed. An abusive asshole wouldn’t have thought twice.” 

Dave swallowed. Because, yeah, the alien he’s known for, what, a month has a better insight on his personality and how he’s grown from his traumatic childhood than he does. God damn it, Karkat. He stuttered. “Why are you raised so violently?” 

Karkat laughed loudly, it really sounded more like the bark of a seal than anything else. “Shit, I don’t know, maybe because of the hemospectrum? Lowbloods are basically taught to hide themselves. If they fight back, that’s grounds for execution, legally. But nobody’s going to persecute someone for culling someone lower on the caste then themselves. The higher you are, the more expected you are to cull. It’s ingrained into highblood’s DNA, anyways.” 

Dave scooted forward, much to the desperation of the poor structure of the pile they were sitting in. “Where do you fall?” He asked in Alternian. He was getting pretty good, he didn’t even give Karkat a reason to bitch at him. 

Karkat scoffed. “Lowblood. Lower than that, technically. I’m a mutant. I’m not supposed to exist, and I should have been culled as a wriggler before everything got so… complicated.” He says the last word spitefully. Dave didn’t take offense, but he could feel the anger seething from the last word. He must have realized he didn’t specifically answer Dave’s question because he sat up straight and moved in. 

Before Dave could catch his hand (his defenses were down), he pushed Dave’s glasses into his hair with all the neatness that one could try to have when reaching onto someone else’s face. Dave shut his eyes at first, adjusting to the light of the room. But when he looked at Karkat, and their eyes made contact for the first time- real contact -and he found that Karkat’s eyes matched his. It shouldn’t be reassuring that the eye color you’ve been insecure about your whole life for its individuality is shared with a literal fucking alien, but Dave found a lot of things reassuring about Karkat. He exhaled softly. 

_____ 

“Alright, Strider,” Karkat said from the foot of his bed as Dave was working on a song. “I’m sick of this shit, and you’ve got me on your stupid reversed sleeping schedule. You’ve spent hours on the song about me, and I’m fucking tired. Come here, I’ll show you what a real love movie looks like.” 

Dave turned around and relented quickly, flopping himself onto the mattress. “I didn’t even wanna watch the human romance movies in the first place.” His voice was muffled from his blanket, and Karkat specifically made sure to put pressure on his knee as he crawled over Dave’s back. “Asshole!” He cried as he sat up and moved next to Karkat. 

Karkat just laughed. He started swiping through the movies he had saved on his bug-phone-thing. “How about… this one?” He pulled up the title so Dave could practice reading. 

Dave scrunched up his nose, his eyebrows disappearing behind his shades. He shook his head. “How does the boyfriend-best friend romance fit into a story about trains?” 

Karkat looked at him with absolutely no life in his eyes. “Because I am tired, I am going to pretend you didn’t just call moiraillegence your stupid human ‘bestfriend-boy friend’ quadrant. We can tackle that tomorrow. And that’s the whole point! The protagonist gets pale for one of the other mechanics for Her Imperious Condescension’s longbuggy. It’s inspiring- it’s a classic! It gets sad in the end, the protagonist’s moirail dies, she gets all bent about it. You have to watch it, it’s basically a rite of passage.” Karkat goes on, punctuating each word with a different wave of his hand- the only actual signs that Dave caught was one that looked like a diamond, and maybe a heart another time. 

Karkat shoved himself underneath Dave’s blankets, mumbling about quadrants and something called a recuperacoon. Dave hesitantly laid down next to him- he’d never really shared the bed like this before. Sure, he and Karkat had slept on it together, but one of them was on the opposite side, their feet to the side of the other’s shoulder. On the couch, it was the same, because there was a coffee table to set a laptop on. But with Karkat’s phone, there was a smaller screen and nowhere to set it. So Dave kept as much composure as he could- it isn’t like he’s doing anything wrong, just watching a movie with a friend. A romance movie, but really, Dave wasn’t sure that “moiraillegence” counted as romance. It was the same as being friends, right? He wasn’t sure what was so bad about that. 

So he laid down next to Karkat, poked him in the shoulder, and told him to press play in Alternian. 

______ 

Karkat could practically recite the movie word for word. He thought about doing it, just to piss Dave off, but he didn’t want to ruin his first quadrant movie. His prong stick was getting tired and heavy holding the screen up above the two of them, and he noticed Dave’s breathing start to slow, his bloodpusher beating slowly. 

Karkat’s glance nuggets started to feel heavy. His prong stick almost fell onto the quadrant blanket when Karkat heard clicking from the palmhusk and FUCK, I FORGOT ABOUT THIS PART. 

The protagonist’s first shooshpap. Fuck, fuck, fuck, this movie had pale porn in it, and Karkat forgot? He managed to show one of the few movies with porn in it? What kind of pervert was Dave going to take him for? 

The camera zoomed in on their quadrant patch, growing paler and paler with each pap until it was nearly white, and the protagonist’s cheeks were a bright jade. They started crying, sharing the pressure they were under and all their grievances with their moirail, who sat there, papping and listening. Nodding encouragingly and rubbing their prong stick. Comforting as all hell, right out in the open, in front of the human. Was he going to think all movies had porn in them? God, was Karkat going to have to explain quadrant molting to him? It was a major plot device in the movie and he would not be looking forward to that conversation. 

______ 

Dave didn’t notice anything wrong with the scene onscreen. Okay, well, he wasn’t that stupid. He saw the way the camera framed the weird face touching as something important, if not explicit. He saw the way Karkat’s cheeks went red, and the patch went white, and he looked like he was ready to share something personal. Dave could hear the literal purring coming off of the alien next to him. He just had the vibe of emotional vulnerability practically dripping off of him. He had no clue what was going on. 

He turned around to fall asleep, leaving Karkat with the best-friend sex, or whatever. 

_____ 

Karkat woke up about twenty minutes ago. But he didn’t know what to do. He can’t just show Dave porn and move on! Shit! 

Dave sat up quickly next to him, putting on his glasses though Karkat couldn’t recall when he’d taken them off. He wished that Dave would just get over himself and not wear the shades, sometimes, but then he realized it probably would have taken away from the speciality of last night, so. He’s undecided on the topic. 

Dave yawns and then launches into a question because, of course, he can’t even wake up for a few minutes before opening his damn squawker. “Why was that one scene… like that?” 

“What?” Karkat’s voice felt rough, like he’d slept with his squawker open or something. 

“You know, the one with all the face touching and crying and stuff.” 

It was only about seven am, and Karkat was already so done. “What, do you mean the fucking shooshpaps?” 

______ 

It was only about eight in the morning, and Dave was already so confused. How can you feel four different kinds of attraction, Dave had enough trouble just feeling the one! He guessed that considering Karkat was an alien, there’d be a bunch of differences. But he hadn’t expected love to be so different. I mean, he does technically have the flushed square, which is the same as Dave’s romance, but still. He expected love to be universal- a force you can’t mess with, like time or something. 

“Do you get it now?” Karkat had a strange expression on his face, one that made it difficult for Dave to tell whether he was happy he got to share about his rectangular romance, or annoyed that he had to in the first place. Dave didn’t say anything because no, he wasn’t quite sure he did. Karkat sighed, a strangely angry noise for someone that looked so… soft in the morning. 

Not soft, so much as just. Not entirely feral, really. 

Karkat waved his hand in front of Dave’s face, looking ready to knock on his head to check if anybody was in there. Dave looked up at him, “Mostly, just, what is it with the patch on your cheek? Why is yours red and theirs green? Is it another blood thing?” 

Karkat’s cheeks went red and he threw his head up in annoyance, leaving Dave to face his neck and the underside of his jaw. “You are not about to make me explain quadrant molting to you, are you?” He groaned like this was the worst possible thing Dave could have chosen to make him explain. 

“I mean, not if you don’t want to, I gue-“ 

Karkat threw a pillow at his face. “No, shut the fuck up and listen. See this thing right here?” He gestured to the patch on the right side of his jaw, which was bright red and loosely hand shaped. Dave nodded. “This is called a quadrant patch. It starts our quadrant puberty. Since each quadrant has different needs and purposes, it would be absolute agony to go through all four puberties at once if you only end up using, like, the pale one, for example. The patch is typically the color of your blood, unless you’re feeling pitch, flushed, ashen, et cetera, et cetera. Following?” Dave felt like he was lagging on picking up what Karkat was telling him, but he’d get there eventually. He mumbled a yeah and waved a hand so Karkat could keep going. “When you’re feeling that, the patch changes color accordingly. I’d tell you exactly why, but I haven’t had that schoolfeeding lesson yet. When you’re feeling the quadrants, there’s some kind of gland that sends hormones according to what you’re feeling down to your prongtips. If both you and your partner are okay with it, this is where things get interesting.” 

Oh, gog, did Dave hate that wording. Was he about to explain sex to him? Was he really going to get the sex talk from an alien? “What?” Dave hoped his tone accurately displayed his concern for what the hell he did not want to be hearing about right now. Karkat rolled his eyes. 

“Not like that, perv. Well, a little like that, but I’m not talking about pailing. I have absolutely no need or want to talk about something as disgusting as that with someone as stupid as you.” (“Hey!” “Well?”) “Okay, let’s say that you have a moirail, and you’re going to have your first shooshpap. Afterwords, you’d endure pale puberty, which just makes more dismay fluid, and a few patches specifically for your pale quadrant. It varies from troll to troll, but the most common ones are on your back, where your prongs would fall in a hug. For your matesprit, during your first kiss, common flushed patches fall on the neck or waist. For your kismesis, after a good slap, the throat and your stomach. And ashen patches fall on the palms for the auspistice, and around the wrists of the two that are pitch. These just act like little pheromone patches, really. Got it?” Karkat’s words got tighter as he went on, as though there were something particularly personal about where a troll gets off when crying, or something. 

“Yeah.” And just then, Dave decided that aliens were weird as all hell, and he wanted to know as much about them as possible.

_____

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> phew, another chapter done! 
> 
> also, the quadrant patch- thats my headcanon! i made it 100% myself. i incorporate it into my fic, my art, and my cosplay, so if you’d like to headcanon it too, that would be SICK, just please give me credit!!! im @niiiiix on here, @zuipperpips.cos on insta, and @zuipperpips on tiktok!


	4. four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im sorry this is so short! school is jsut absolutely eating me up and im having trouble coming up with ideas for filler/pining scenes (if u have anything you'd like to see, go for it and tell me! :D)

Dave flops over the back of his couch. Karkat has absolutely no clue how, given that the back of the couch is facing the wall. “What.” He said, as though Dave had crash landed into  _ his  _ hive rather than the other way round. He turned over to Dave, seeing much more of his nostrils than he was comfortable with. 

Dave sighed as he slumped even further down the couch, the top of his panholder almost touching the ground. “I’m bored”.

Karkat scoffed and flipped himself upside down too. He waited a moment, “I don’t see how this is supposed to help boredom.” His prongsticks were crossed and his posturepole was pretty much rigid, leaving almost no room for comfort. Dave started laughing, and Karkat only frowned further. “What’s so funny, asshat?”

“Nothing,” He said, his head’s movement implying that he was looking Karkat up and down before continuing. “I’m still bored, as entertaining as your stiff posture is.”

Karkat rolled his eyes. “Right. Because I joined you in sitting in such a bulgemunching ridiculous way just to entertain you.” He was defensive because Dave was partly right. Fuck that. He flipped himself around as though it would prove some kind of point. “Don’t expect your  _ guest _ to have all the answers- what do you want to do?” He said with just as much sarcastic inflection on the word ‘guest’ as on ‘you’.

Dave drew out a “Hmm…” until his panholder lightly hit the floor, followed by the top of his posturepole and his broadnubs. He swore under his breath before flipping himself around and smiling, his glasses sitting lopsidedly on his snortnub. Karkat looked at Dave, who sat there a moment still, with his forehead and cheeks red, and his chest heaving and his smile unforgettable, and he’s filled with something warm in his chest that he diagnosed as annoyance and shoved away. “Baking contest.” He said decisively, making Karkat feel even more pissed.

“What the fuck is a baking.”

Dave pushed his sunglasses up, scrunching his snortnub as he did. “You know, like taking food and… what was it you called it? Cookalizing it? But… sweet. As a dessert.” He saw Karkat’s confusion at the new word and explained it.

“Oh,” he said softly, “Wait, don’t you just mean b _ ache _ ing?” He said louder to make up for it. He put more emphasis on the middle of the word unlike Dave, and he guessed that was where the miscommunication came from.

Dave shrugged. “Probably. So? Why not?”

“I never said no, dunkass!”

_____

Karkat decided it was his turn first. He threw a fit about being his  _ di _ guest, so Dave hopped up on the counter and said  _ be my guest _ , to which Karkat grumbled “I already am, fuckwit.” while trying to navigate his pantry. There was a lot there, mostly snack foods. He’d be surprised if there was, what, flour in there? 

Karkat was terrible at reading the packaging. He was okay at written english, but snack packages were all in different colors and textures and shapes and… unnecessarily complicated, really. A couple times, he dipped his claw into bags with poor labelling on them. Both times he was surprised by the taste. A few minutes later, he thinks he sees something he can put to actual use. “Is this a seedfruit grubloaf mix? Why does it have a shiny picture of a human female with blue hair?”

Dave looks up from his socks at Karkat and what’s in his hand. “Oh, my gog, yeah, it is. That’s a Miku Hatsune Vocaloid official strawberry cake mix, made in, wait give it here-” He took the box from Karkat’s hand and looked it over. The Box Top on top of it had a date next to it- 2009. “Holy shit,” Dave said, his smile uncontainable and his laughter damn near the same. “Dirk has a two year old box of anime girl cake mix just sitting in here. There’s no way this is ironic.” Karkat felt a bit confused, like he wanted to ask what a Miku is and maybe what a strawberry is, but he held it back after hearing Dave’s laughter and joining in. Dave looked up at him, laughing tears streaming underneath his glasses. He clutched the cake mix like it was the last thing he’d ever hold close to him and said “Dude, if you don’t make the fucking Miku Hatsune cake, I will report your ass to the government. This is imperative.” 

Karkat made a face like he knew he was joking, but didn’t find it that funny anyway. Dave was much better at reading his faces recently, and it only half-way annoyed Karkat that only now that they know each other’s languages do they learn to non-verbally communicate. Figures. 

_____ 

“Hey, Karkat?” Karkat looked down at Dave, who was leaning on his shoulder. He surprised himself with that one, really, but he blamed it on alien cake and platonic feelings and called it good. He sucked in a breath. “Do you ever get… nervous? About how they might find you?” He felt Karkat’s shoulders tense up. They had just finished the cake, which Karkat thought turned out really well. Dave ended up eating over half of it for ‘ironic purposes’, but Karkat thinks he just liked it and didn’t know how else to rationalize it.

“No.” 

“Really?” Dave looked up at Karkat. “Because I do. A lot. Like basically every day.” He took an unsteady breath and shook out his hands. “I worry about you so much, Karkat. I like your company. The only other person that’s ever here is Dirk and I love the guy, but man, is he silent. He never wants to talk to me about anything, he just sits in his room texting his boyfriend. So having someone here, every day, to talk to me and listen to me, and God I don’t know, really just  _ exist _ around me is new and it’s just what I needed.” Karkat tried to interrupt, but Dave held up a hand. “No, let me keep going, or else I’ll shut down. Yeah, I definitely don’t have it as bad as Jade or anything, but there’s never been anybody for me to just… regularly converse with. And now you’re here, and it’s so nice, even if you act like you’re pissed all the time. And I don’t know if I’ll be able to just let that go. So yes, Karkat, I’m so fucking worried about you.” Dave’s voice broke and was practically dripping pale. Diamonds spun around Karkat’s head and he was so damn sure his patch was giving him away, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t care. How could he, when Dave was right here, (figuratively) paler than snow?

He couldn’t think straight, he just wanted to  _ talk _ . He wanted to go and go and run his mouth with Dave’s prong on his cheek, encouraging and comforting him as he probably cried around someone else for the first time in… ever.

_____

Dave didn’t know what to say next. Karkat honestly looked sort of doped up. His lips parted and his eyes wide. His patch was pale as hell, and he couldn’t remember if that was the romance that he knew, or if it was the hate one or the friendship one. So Dave did the only thing he thought of whenever he was unsure- He took a chance. He looked down at the troll’s lips and back up. Over and over until Karkat wasn’t visibly repulsed. He could hear his blood in his ears and feel his heart pound in his chest.

_____

Karkat watched Dave lean in, and all he knew how to feel was flushed. It was radiating off of Dave, and he felt drunk on hearts. His pheromone patch was so red it felt on fire, sending so much dopamine to his pan all he could process was the prong on his cheek and the way Dave’s lips were just above his. His blood was rushing through his body and he wanted so badly to just give in and close the gap.

“Dave?” Said a rough voice from behind Karkat. Dave jumped away from Karkat and he felt himself slow down. There was fear in his eyes and his hands were held up.    


  
“Dirk, it’s not-”

“Don’t make me fucking deal with this, dude.”

Dave nodded, tossed Karkat a blanket, and said a really quick goodnight before retreating to his room.

What the fuck just happened?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IN CASE UR CONFUSED AS TO HOW THAT JUST HAPPENED-
> 
> trolls only give out pheramones through their palms.
> 
> humans just kinda... exude them.
> 
> and in trolls, pheramones produce happy chemicals! so whenever dave is like "oh man i like him" even in his head, it makes him produce pheramones that karkat recieves and basically makes him go wooooo!


	5. five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tws-  
> -mentions of bro strider  
> -mildly graphic depictions of fighting and violence
> 
> this onez gonna hurt i apologize in advance
> 
> oh ALSO
> 
> i made a playlist for this fic  
> i uh. spoiler warning i suppose
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5LmsIsDfYhujNMUk5m6CNU

Dave woke up the next morning tired. He’d only slept a few hours last night, spending all his time instead thinking. About Karkat, mostly, but a little about Bro, too. But again. Mostly about Karkat. 

The way he almost kissed him, mostly. The way his breath brushed over his lips and he could fucking  _ feel _ the heat bouncing off his lips and his nose and, somehow, his cheeks, all jumping right onto Dave’s respective parts of his face, and all he could do was sit there and take it. Take the warmth from the boy just beneath him. He wasn’t sure if it was a reward or a punishment. He got further than he’d ever even imagined, fuck, but he didn’t break the distance. There was still the little space between them, and it hurt so bad. He felt like a magnet, but he couldn’t figure out if Karkat was the matching or reverse pole.

He couldn’t tell if Karkat was pulling him in or pushing him away.

He wouldn’t know, really. He can’t do that again. He doesn’t even know how he’s going to look at Karkat once he gets out of his room ( _ shades, duh,  _ he reminds himself). He doesn’t know how he’s going to be able to stand being in the same room without grabbing Karkat and crashing their lips together. It’d be fast and too hard, and their teeth would probably click and he might even make Dave’s lip bleed, which would be fucking annoying, but he wouldn’t mind it too badly. He imagined it a thousand different ways before he fell asleep last night, but his favorite ones were the ones where Karkat just pulled him in out of nowhere, fumbling lips and sweet promises between their negative space. He’d tell him crazy impossibilities, like “I love you,” and “I’m here to stay,” and “Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me,” 

Fuck, he’d kill for Karkat.

But if he was pushing away… He wouldn’t have let Dave get that close, right? Karkat couldn’t be that cruel. Sure, he was a dickwad sometimes, but he couldn’t just let Dave get this close only to take it from him at the last second. Would he have? If Dirk hadn’t shown up? Would he have shoved Dave off and called him nasty things? Was he thankful Dirk interrupted them?

Dave sighed, rubbing his eyes underneath his shades. 

God damn it. 

______

Karkat woke up on Dave’s ‘couch’ with a panache to kill and confusion with a similar intent.  _ WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT? _ He thought, for the several hundredth time in the span of eighteen hours.

One part of “ _ THE FUCK _ ” that he’s still pretty confused by is how Dave just intoxicated him just by being right there. He could remember basically smelling the goddamn diamonds off of him, and right after his head was swimming in hearts. He knew trolls vacillated, and he was well aware of every single way that could be used as a plot point- but he’d never experienced it before. He’d never felt the thickness in the air before, he didn’t know the books weren’t exaggerating. Karkat always figured that they were glorifying something that was really only okay. How is kissing supposed to feel different then just smashing your lips on your frond? But he hadn’t even kissed Dave and he knew it was definitely different.

He knew that it was something he could get used to. The way his bloodpusher would practically scream erratically, telling Karkat  _ more more more, closer, closer, closer _ . And how his digestion tubes would feel like they were flipping, and how every single one of his thoughts centered on the warmth coming through Dave’s hand on his cheek. Specifically on his quadrant patch, fuck. 

Karkat wondered if he’d ever get close enough to Dave to kiss him. He wondered if he’d ever get over himself enough to try.

Fuck, he’d die for Dave.

______

Eventually Dave got up and walked out of his room. Delaying the inevitable never did much good for him. He had a speech more or less prepared in his head-  _ im sorry, it wont happen again, i really dont know what i was thinking, all i know is that i cant stand living for another moment without pulling you in _ . Which is why that was only more or less an apology speech- Dave held so much for Karkat, so much need to know more about him and his culture and his life and his lips and the way they’d feel that he couldn’t possibly apologize for not kissing him without wanting to even more. He was so fucked, and he had no clue what he was going to say to actually avoid ruining everything.

“Hey.”   
  


Karkat looked up from the couch. “Hey.”   
  
Oh. Okay. He expected him to be angry, pacing the room with his thick brows furrowed, his hands waving in the air so fast you’d think it was thinner around him. Dave certainly felt like it. But he wasn’t. He was just laying down, his arms under his chin. “What’s up?”

Karkat looked around the mildly empty room. “Nothing, really.”

...Okay. “I’m going to go get some AJ, and then we’ll figure out what we’re going to do today.” Karkat just nodded. 

Dave was met in the kitchen by Dirk.

____

Dirk wasn’t an asshole. Okay? He wasn’t. 

It was a perfectly normal thing to not want a fucking alien living in your house. If anything, Dave was the asshole for ignoring his requests (orders) to get it out of the house. And Dirk was all for young love and shit, or whatever the hell it was the two had going on, but enough was enough. He had priorities, and his very first one was keeping Dave safe. They were finally in a place in life where he could do that, and he wasn’t going to let Dave’s idiocy fuck it up. Part of keeping Dave safe was preventing any goddamn possible CIA raids, and part of _that_ was not keeping an undiscovered, alien species from one of the most powerful forces in the world. That kid was going to get somebody killed, and Dirk refused to let it be either one of them.

He’d been sitting on this for almost a week, now, trying to come up with a good way to phrase it. He wasn’t heartless, just rigid, and there was some combination of words out there that would put it the way he needed. However, Dirk wasn’t great at finding them. 

Which is why he found it extremely convenient when Dave had walked into the kitchen without that damn alien for once. 

“Hey,” Dirk said casually, not quite sure how to start a conversation like this. 

“Hey.” Dave said back, opening the fridge and predictably pulling out the apple juice. 

Dirk pulled on the cupboard behind him, grabbing a glass and handing it to his little brother. He looked like it, too, especially in the morning. With mussed hair, and puffy eyes that distantly resembled his own.  _ Dave looks like a kid when he wakes up. _ Dirk thinks to himself, his arm freezing in midair. He shook his head and placed the glass on the counter. Now would be a really hard and inconvenient time to picture Dave as a kid again. He watches as he pours the juice in the cup, and tries, hard, to view him as an equal.

“You need to get rid of it.” He says instead. Harshly, simply, quietly.

Dave looks up, lost. He finishes taking a drink from his cup and tilts his head. “It?” He asks.

Dirk wishes Dave didn’t have to be so naive. He wishes he would be smart enough to let him avoid this confrontation. “It. The alien, your boyfriend, whatever.” He waved his hand dismissively. “It can’t stay here for any longer, Dave. I gave you warnings. I gave you time and chances, and now you’re out.”

Dave sets down his cup on the counter with too much force. The clinking sound it made sounded sickeningly loud with Dave’s abnormal silence. It only lasted a moment longer until he burst, his voice loud and raw. “I can’t- Karkat can’t go anywhere. I need him- he needs me! He has nobody else, he has nowhere else! I’m not just going to fucking kick him out, dude, it’s too late for that. What the fuck kind of opportunities that end in living are there out there for an alien, Dirk? What is he supposed to do?” His hands flew around wildly, as though somewhere in the air he’d hit a solid reason to keep Karkat here.

“I don’t  _ know,  _ Dave, it’s not my problem. I gave you chances, okay? This is on you. Actions have consequences. Taking in a fucking alien, dude, has its consequences! How long do you expect this to go on for? How long does this dream last to you, Dave, tell me that. How long until you wake up and realize you don’t live in a perfect world? The world doesn’t care if you want to kiss an alien, the world doesn’t care if that’s what feels best. The world cares about violence, and finding excuses for it.” Dirk’s voice got louder and louder. He couldn’t stop it. If he needed to be louder, to talk more, to get Dave to understand, then he would. He tried to interrupt him, but Dirk’s hand flew up to silence him. “What do you think happens to you if they find him, Dave? What happens to us?” He took a step closer and lowered his voice. “The legality of you living with me is thin as it was, and I am not going to let you give them an excuse to give you back.” Dirk saw Dave’s shoulders fall. “I could survive it, and I would if it meant you didn’t have to again. But I legally don’t have to, and you would. I am doing your ass a fucking favor, and you should be thanking me for it.”

And silence fell on the kitchen again. It was thick and tense, and it made Dirk’s hands twitch. Neither of them ever spoke about Bro. They didn’t on the very first night they moved out, and hadn’t had a reason to since. He guessed Dave just wanted to forget, and pretend that he was okay. Dirk knew otherwise, but couldn’t find a way to bring it up that made sense to him. Dirk was normally fine with silence, even with Dave, but he couldn’t stomach it now. Dave shouldn’t have the advantage of calculation, he shouldn’t get the time to work out his response when Dirk didn’t. It made him angry. “You need to get rid of him.” He said again, sternly, because his bullshit timer went off. Dave shook his head, because the idiot didn’t know how to pick his battles correctly. He was young, and headstrong. Which was good, in some cases, but it also meant he didn’t know when to take his head out of his ass and back down. Dirk had seen it firsthand enough, the look in his eyes, the turn in his lips. That look of his used to scare Dirk. Not of Dave, but rather for him. But now it just upset him even more. “Or I will.” Quietly. He didn’t mean it as a threat, he’d never threaten Dave. But he would remind him of reality, however rudely need be.

“No!” Dave said immediately, his head snapping back up and his expression wiped and replaced with fear. “No, I- I won’t let you, Dirk, I can’t, I can’t…” A tear fell down his cheek. Dirk refused to let it make him feel guilty. “I love him.”

Dirk stood his ground. “That’s your fault.” His hands clenched into fists, as though he was ready to take action right then and there. “I’ll do it, then, since you can’t.”

“No! No, no, no- You can’t either, I- we-” His voice broke off every few seconds, like he was struggling to pick up the skills necessary to talk with his arms already full. “I’ll fight you for it, Dirk.” His voice was wavering, fearful. “I won’t let you see him last.”

Dirk smiled. There. That was how he raised Dave. Or tried to, at least, from the time he got. “I’ll beat you.” He said, genuinely. A premonition, not a taunt.

“I won’t let you.” Dave said grimly. Dirk vaguely wondered if he meant it. “If I win,” Dave said, his voice sounding like it was betraying him, trying to shut him up before he said too much. “He stays.”

“Hm.” Dirk hummed, thoughtfully. “If I win, he has to go. I don’t care how, but you have to do it. It’s time you learned to clean up your own damn messes.”

Dave held out a hand. “Deal,” He said, like he already regretted it.

“Deal,” Dirk agreed, like he knew Dave would. He grabbed Dave’s hand and shook it. 

Then Dave’s other hand flew into his jaw in the form of a fist. The feeling reverberated throughout his head, and he was thankful he wasn’t wearing his shades for once, otherwise they’d surely fall, if not break. His teeth slammed together, making a clicking sound that was almost nauseating. Dirk pulled his hand back at once, and rolled his neck. “Cheap.” Dirk criticized, pulling himself into stance as quickly as he could. Adrenaline started pumping through his veins, and he didn’t feel as shocked by the hit he took.

_ Feet shoulder-width apart, hands by your eyes, shift your weight, take short breaths. _ His mind repeated the basic rules of their ‘training’ over and over, never forgetting a thing. He wasn’t allowed to. He waited for Dave to take the next move, for him to slip up. They hadn’t fought in a long while, and Dirk couldn’t remember his strategy. 

And then Dave threw a punch at his neck (or rather, his wrists), and he remembered. Quick, powerful shots thrown at random, with the hope that at least one of them catches you off-guard. Dirk was nearly the opposite. He’d sit there and block any number of hits until he figured out how best to defeat his opponent. It didn’t take long for him to figure out Dave.

All he had to do was wait. Tire him out.

Dirk could smell apple juice, he could smell sweat. He could smell the desperation leeching off of each one of his punches, the fear that came with his kicks. He felt a little bad, honestly- this wasn’t the most clever strategy, nor the most fair. But he would deal. Dave would, too, it was for their safety that he was playing it easy.

Dave got a few good hits in, he had to give him that. He was sure his jaw would bruise, and he was not expecting a kick to his side after a good few consecutive hits toward his sternum. Dirk was dodging, flashstepping back and forth because his arms weren’t always fast enough to block everything. There was a moment of doubt for Dirk, just one, when Dave momentarily knocked the wind out of him after he mistepped. But he regained himself and flipped it. 

Now Dave was the one cornered and panting. Dirk watched it sink in, Dave’s fear getting confirmed right in front of him. His hands shook, and his eyes were wide, greatly contrasting the seriousness of his furrowed brow. His breathing was uneven, and he let his feet go flat. Dirk felt sorry, actually, because Dave shrunk down right in front of him, accepting of the outcome, but he wouldn’t officially fucking give up if his life depended on it.

It was too bad his didn’t.

Dirk threw a swift punch to Dave’s face. He was aiming for his cheek, but the tricky little shit moved, and it only hit him in the eye. It was a confusing and disgusting mixture of hard brow bone and soft eyeball against his knuckles, and it made Dirk recoil faster than usual. Dave’s head hit the cabinet behind him, and Dirk dropped his hands. He flattened his feet. He slowed his breathing. 

He won. 

It was a shitty end, really, with a punch to his face. It felt unearned. His favorite way to end fights was with a weak shot to a strong part of the opponent’s body. It proved he beat them in every way possible, even in their strongest area. So this, with Dave, felt boring. Unfinished at best, but he wasn’t going to just decimate his ass for no reason. He wasn’t cruel. He made his point already. 

Dave sunk down. He put his head in his hands, and Dirk knew it wasn’t because of his assured black eye. His breathing was uneven again, and for similar reason. He was still in a panic. But this time he had the chance to cry about it. Dirk sat down near him, not touching him and hardly looking at him. Granting him that privacy, if any. Dave was mumbling useless words in between gasps and sobs. “No,” and “Can’t,” and “Won’t,” and “Love”.

But he had to. He could, and he would, and Dirk was sorry Dave loved him. 

He tried to prevent it. He gave Dave a chance to avoid all of this.

He’ll give him one more. 

“You’ve got a day.” He offers.

Dave just nods.

_____

Dave walks back to the living room after he’s collected himself. His shades are on, he doesn’t think Karkat will be able to see the pain he feels on his left eye. 

Karkat looks up at him and smiles a little, and something fundamental inside of Dave collapses in on itself. Karkat stands up and walks towards the frozen Dave.    
  
“What are we doing today?” He asks innocently. Dave never thought he’d be able to describe Karkat as innocent, but now he couldn’t help but see everything he does as victimless, now. Karkat was a fucking saint, as far as Dave was concerned.

Dave grabbed the sides of Karkat's arms fast and hard, and used all his restraint to not kiss him. “We’re going to live, and we’re going to do it fast and hard.” He said, unapologetically. 


End file.
